Orsolya
An uncreased flag, crimson and gold, hung over the edges of a solitary casket. Hands clasping his hat to his stomach, Richard Sorge stared down at the Aquila spreading its wings across the flag.
Artificial joints creaked. Another officer in cap and greatcoat came to Sorge's shoulder, swept his cap off his bald head, and held it to his chest.
"Joints could do with an oil, Estoc," Sorge muttered.
"It's too soon, sir."
"Mm. Right on both counts."
"Twenty-seven years old."
"He would have been, this year."
"Let our thoughts go to the affected."
Artificial snow fell in a wooded enclosure surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows. Together, Sorge and Estoc walked the circuit looking out at the trees. "The wife has family in Upper Gorev."
"One without a care for the lower animals, Estoc. The Gorites would have let the gutter-dwellers choke on the VOCs cloud if they could."
"A family not of inconsiderable influence, sir. Two words I fear most now are internal investigation."
"I shouldn't worry about some upset Gorites. We feed them the same mess the rest of this damned city swallows. A rogue xenos in the night, a carjacking gone wrong, and four dead to show for it. Vantorout is now our golden boy, Estoc, a martyr cruelly deprived of his best years in the service. We can work this in our favour."
"And the family? There was a family involved in the collision, sir, a collision leading back to us."
"Nothing can be traced back to us. Ben worked late. This was known."
"They had an infant."
"More than Vantorout managed…"
"That's our martyr, Richard. He was out there on your orders. Now, this mess with OSEC. Say they decide to publish the identity of the culprit…"
"Oh, the public wouldn't care for a name. Anti-xenos feelings are already at an all-time high, what with slant-ear sorcerers dangling this new lord commander by the balls over the throne at Macragge."
"There are five-hundred of them in Avramides. Those walls won't be able to sustain the collective rage of the mob."
"478. The four-hundred-and-seventy-ninth alone holds my thoughts."
"And is currently held by OSEC pending charges…?"
"We can thank our martyr and the God Emperor that this is now a matter for Naval interest."
"And the other xenos? The ambassador told me there are many young, old and infirm under her roof. Warrior-folk are scant. Armament lacking."
"And I suppose you'd want to take the blueskins in to protective care too? Or the abhumans? You find the ambassador's company far too pleasant, Estoc. A fair face is no guarantee of a fair soul."
"And you think a fair soul would have anything to do with a bald, old thing with creaky knees? I am a professional, Richard, with personal concerns for my fellow officers. We're placing far too much value in one woman with a proven penchant for bloody murder. Now, OSEC has their touchy hands on her. It'll be the block or the rope before the sun falls."
"Leave OSEC to me. You're meeting the ambassador today, aren't you?"
"Mm. Talgatos Park."
"Sing dumb."
"On OSEC's convict?"
"On everything."
"She's not a fool, Richard."
"No."
"She reads the headlines."
Sorge seated his cap. "I trust you. Would you like a lift?"
"Thank you, Richard. I'll walk. I need to stop by the market."
"You wouldn't pick up some of that nice cheese, would you…? The wheel with the black rind?"
"I might wander that way." Estoc screwed his own cap down and shook Sorge's hand. "Good luck with OSEC, Richard."
"And you with the ambassador."
"I think I should start bringing flowers. D'you think I should start bringing flowers?"
"Haha!" Sorge slapped Estoc's shoulder. "I know who's getting the shit end of the stick today."
"It'll be like facing off with my wife—Emperor rest her soul. Only now she can read my mind."
"How are you for Rako?"
"…I'll feed from my own pocket thank you, Richard."
"No, no, I insist." Sorge passed Rako sticks to Estoc. "Smooth things out with the ambassador. Take her to dinner."
"Err, I'll have a job finding an establishment catering to non-humans." Estoc slipped the Rako in to his coat pocket. "Might have to be a takeout. I know a good outlet. Discreet."
"First class, Ikram."
Semi-tinted windows and reinforced doors separated Sorge from the streets of Elek. A Volg Navy Special Purpose Carbine hung in a bracket by his knee and an identical platform occupied a bracket beside his driver Coortland's knee.
Smoke columns tickled Upper Gorev's underbelly. Loose gangs congregated on street corners, staves, hammers, knives, and chains dangling from fists. Some lounged in armchairs with their feet up on broken tables. One tossed a wadge of Rako in to the air and swung a bat in to it. A rainbow exploded across the Wolfhound's bonnet and clattered against the windscreen. The batsman twirled his instrument, smirking to himself. A ball hit the bumper.
"Sir, civilians in the street up ahead. Lots of civilians."
"Keep driving." Sorge's fingers played across his dataslate's touchpad. A tiny envelope appeared in the top left corner of the screen. Lidia? Sorge called up the message.
Urgent. Very important visitor in your office right now! She turned up without prior announcement. Will only speak to you, sir.
She? Sorge's fingertips slid down the keys. Oh, God-Emperor. God-Emperor, not now. Not now. Sorge pinched his chin. His ears warmed. How did she find the office?
"Coortland, the arcade."
"Right, sir." An egg splattered the windscreen. Coortland pumped the horn. Wipers smeared pale yellow liquid over the glass. A bat smacked the driver's mirror and knocked it askew. Sorge powered his dataslate down and leaned back against the seat. His stomach burbled. Outside, the gutter-dwellers frolicked around stolen goods piled in plain sight. Rako blocks cascaded inside empty drums. Fuel trickled inside and fire leaped skywards.
Roses nestled inside crisp paper. A pink ribbon held a lid on a box of chocolates sitting on the seat next to Sorge. The Wolfhound bounced up the ramp leading to INI HQ and braked before the sealed gate. Six naval infantry bearing arms stood sentry. Sorge lowered his window and passed his ID over. "How's your trigger, Coort?"
"Twitchy, sir."
"D'you feel like joining me on a jaunt across the Helio?" The ID returned to Sorge and he closed his window.
"We got a game scheduled then, sir?" Coortland drove through the gate and turned towards the carpark.
"Just a little package transfer. I'm putting a team together."
"Heiding and Gevers are good, sir."
"I know."
"We work well together."
"I know. I'll call you when I need you." Sorge unlocked his door and gathered the flowers and chocolates in his arms.
"Good luck with the missus, sir." Coortland laid an arm on the back of his seat.
"Heh." Sorge stuck his hand in his pocket and grinned. "You know, of all the things I've seen, that's what scares me the most. The beast that can't be slain."
Sorge's office door on Fourth stood ajar. "Lidia…?" Sorge peeped over the partition.
"Sir!" Lidia sprang from her chair. "God-Emperor, I'm sorry. She just turned up. I swear, I checked my calendar."
"No-no-no-no, it's fine." Sorge shook his bouquet. "Armed appropriately, I march in to the jaws of certain humiliation. Would you hold my calls until we're done?"
"Sir, it's not who you think—"
"Darling, I hadn't expected the pleasure!" Sorge pushed inside his office and bumped the door shut. A woman in a hooded cloak sat, legs crossed, on the chair in front of his desk. "Darling…?"
"Treats and flowers. Well, what a woman she must be." A tanned woman lowered her hood. A dark brown braid hung down her right shoulder. Curly hairs sprouted over pointed ears. Her smile stretched all the way across her round face.
"Ambassador Galah-Shah…" Sorge dumped the flowers and chocolates on top of a cabinet and perched his cap on a hook. "You've just saved me a lot of stress. I would say it's a relief to see you…"
The ambassador tilted her head and beamed. "Oh, fear not, Commander, I have plenty of worry in store for you."
"Ominous." Sorge eased himself in to his chair and reached underneath the table. His finger found a switch and flicked it. "No trouble working through the riots then?"
"Not at all."
"You drove?"
"I…" The ambassador twirled a hand. "Those machines that drive themselves…"
"Taxis."
"Taxis!"
"Putting that diplomatic immunity to good use…" Sorge met the ambassador's smile. "Hmm, charming."
"I do this for a living now." The ambassador cupped her chin in her hand. "Not bad for a night tutor."
"You taught? What did you teach?"
"I schooled the young."
"You like children?"
"Ahahaha." The ambassador found her braid and ran her thumb along the coiled hair. "I wouldn't be a very good tutor if I didn't…"
"They're rare with your kind, aren't they?"
"Believe me, Commander, siring offspring is regarded as the highest act of love among our cadre. It is not a road many travel. Not I, for one."
"Nor I." Sorge planted a corked bottle and two tumblers on the table. "Do you drink?"
"I do not."
"Nuts? They're roasted." Peanuts trickled in to a shallow bowl.
"Again, I must respectfully refuse, Commander."
"Ah, sorry. My manners. I didn't know you were allergic."
"Nobody mentioned allergies. Why are we speaking about allergies? At present, a tidal wave of human filth rolls towards our enclave – the Tau too."
Sorge clicked the switch beneath his desk. "Some air?"
Human and Eldar climbed the scaffolding swallowing the half-built blocks ringing the building and walked the rooftops. "She's rather rough on the eyes, but she keeps the local filth away. Nobody looks twice at a building site after all." Sorge swung a leg over dried cement layering brick. His jacket dragged over the rough surface. "Ma'am?"
"Gratitude, Commander." The ambassador allowed Sorge to lift her over the wall. "These local filth are ordinary beings seeking nothing more than a peaceful life free of fear, much the same as my own. You cannot deny the parallels, Commander. We are no more warmongers than you—less in fact, given our numbered cycles."
"Oh, contrary, ma'am. Humans are fickle, panicky opportunists given to violence at the gentlest push. They will riot for any reason and leave a good many innocent people suffering because a few maniacs couldn't control their urges. I am very sorry you had to witness Orsolya's torrid state of affairs out there."
"Breathing apparatus is no longer mandatory for outside wear. I should imagine that is a plus."
"…Yes, I suppose." Sorge planted his shoe on a plank bridging a gap between structures and put his weight on it. "Will you permit me?"
"I can manage, Commander." The ambassador crossed the bridge under her own power. "Our enclave will not be able to stand up to the city, Wraithbone barrier or not. Few are our sentinels and scant are their arms."
"You're Avramides, aren't you? That's far from the worst of the riots. They are down in Lutu, Lower Gorev, and here in Elek. Don't cry wolf to me when you're sitting pretty, Ambassador."
"Cry—cry what?" The ambassador loosened the collar of her tunic, reached inside, and brought a rolled newspaper out. "Slant-ear murders reservist and family of three."
"Contrary to what you may read, that is a bastardisation of the truth. We are aware of the exact circumstances of the accident—"
"Accident? You imply there was no-one to blame?"
"My—my officer Vantorout was on a mission involving one of yours. There was a traffic collision—"
"Is that all we are to you? Slant-eared sexpots?"
"A traffic collision, bystanders showed up, outsiders ignorant of the situation."
"Now the whole city knows of our involvement. Is this what you wanted, Commander?"
"The man knew exactly the risks of getting in to bed with that woman—a long-term profit which would have paid off without a single drop of blood spilled. We are rolling with the punch, Madam Ambassador. You and I are the damage control. I have my people to look out for and you have yours." Sorge put his palms together. "Work with me."
"Well…" The ambassador swept dirty, plastic sheeting from a wheelbarrow standing on its nose and leaned against it. "Let us address the immediate. Arms, ammunition, and motivated warriors standing our walls would be welcome."
"I could have a team in place by this evening." Sorge began a slow circuit around stacked slabs the wheelbarrow leaned against.
"How many?"
"Four. Orsolya natives and Cadia veterans. Seasoned, motivated warriors."
"Four…?"
"The more men and resources I pull together, the more heads are going to turn in our direction. Officially, they will not be there. INI will deny their existence."
"I need more."
"Then I need more time."
"And my missing person?"
"That is an OSEC matter. We have no jurisdiction in—"
"Your reservist worked here. That would make it a matter for the Imperial Navy, surely."
Good… Sorge waggled a finger. "And so, we take a stroll upstairs."
"Stroll upstairs…? I may have reached the limit of my understanding of the Gothic language, Commander."
"We are edging in to territories above my paygrade. I can disappear a person if I wish but I cannot return your lost soul to you without violating city law. I am not an Emperor-beloved magician waving his staff and making the bad go away, madam. I have a cogitator and a well-used dataslate." Sorge made his second circuit and paused by the ambassador's shoulder. "The administration cries for a scapegoat. Do not let the dying wail of a serial killer herald Zalilea's demise."
"The people of Zalilea hold my gaze and my heart." The ambassador's eyes met Sorge's. "Not a cripple soaked in human blood."
Sorge flexed his fist behind his back and circled the slabs. "If she was something to you…"
"She brought great evil to our home."
"You would wash your hands of her?"
"If Zalilea is to survive…"
"I'll see a team is placed on standby."
"Discreetly."
"Of course."
"You should know she is not of Zalilea."
"No."
"I knew not where she slunk from. I only did as the Prophet bade. Her word above all others…"
"Prophet?" Sorge's head twitched. A tickle danced inside his collar. "And where does he stand in this?"
"Why do you not ask the young Ranger yourself, Commander? Such is your interest in her."
"Broken things make poor conversation over dinner." Sorge turned in to the ambassador's shoulder. His eyes stood level with hers. "Only the finest for Zalilea's queen." Sorge lifted the ambassador's hand and kissed the back of it.
"Hah, queen!"
"Not bad for a night tutor." Sorge's thumb stroked the shallow ridges.
The ambassador lifted her hand free of Sorge's grasp. "Genis Naval Facility. You keep one of mine in-house. Do me the honour of returning them to Zalilean soil. Name the time and place of appointment."
"The security team I can apply with absolute certainty." Sorge began another circuit. "Genis is another matter."
"Let us set this in motion now, Commander. We can continue our discourse over dinner."
On the other side of the pile, Sorge toed an askew brick in to its niche. "I don't care for business and pleasure intermingling."
"And I do not care for the grinding of human flesh upon my skin, Commander, not while Orsolya burns." A cloak flapped.
"Madam Ambassador?" Sorge rounded the slates. The wheelbarrow stood alone. Dirty sheeting crackled in the wind. "Charming."
Fingerprints covered a well-used dataslate perched on the edge of Sorge's desk. Urgh, God-Emperor. Sorge tipped a soggy cigar butt from a glass. Gold liquid filled with little black bits trickled in to the bin. How many missed calls? A printout lay beside the dataslate. Sorge's thumb ran down the sender names and numbers, forty-eight in total. Prophet.
Sorge whisked the printout aside and unlocked his dataslate. The envelope in the corner pulsated. Sorge called the most recent message up. Major Sehler? Don't think we've spoken before. Sorge's finger hovered over the delete button. Oh, no. You didn't. You damned fool. Sorge lurched from his chair, tore his greatcoat from its stand and jammed his cap on his head. "Lidia, I'm just stepping out."
"Yes, sir." Lidia made it halfway out of her chair before Sorge waved her away.
"Oh, could you pass a word on to Chief Gevers? I need him for an op this afternoon. Heiding and Coortland as well. We'll be taking the Wolfhounds."
"Yes, sir. Should I notify the Admiral of this movement?"
"Er, belay that for now." Sorge flung an arm back at Lidia.
"Do you need a driver, sir?"
"Do it myself. I'll be back in an hour." Inside the lift, Sorge jammed his finger on the G button and pumped it. Prophet.
Hotel Vekaria, Lower Gorev
A sharp buzz reached my ears. I whipped the Moses out from beneath my pillow and rolled off the bed. Trip leaped after me and got on his belly. "Hello?" I wriggled down to the foot of the bed. The intercom beside the door buzzed. "Fuck." I slunk over to the intercom. "Hello?" One finger holding down the button, I trained the Moses on the door. My index finger curled around the trigger.
"Mister Larn, sir? You have a visitor, sir. He's waiting for you on the terrace, sir."
"Right." My finger relaxed. The Moses drooped. Trip, on guard next to me, wagged his tail. "Mister Larn…" Big, wet eyes blinked.
Wide, glass doors led out on to a U-shaped terrace on the thirteenth floor. Ivy clung to wooden trellises. A long, cushioned seat hung by two chains from a tall frame. Garden chairs stood around circular tables. Bright flowers spilled from pots.
"It's quite the view, isn't it?" Beyond a screen of ivy Richard Sorge, feet up on a low wall, sat at a table. I made a fist behind my back. Trip followed me over to a tape barrier strung up around a broken segment of wall at the base of the U. Workmen's tools were piled on stacks of brand-new bricks sitting on wooden pallets. Trip sniffed at a bright-yellow pump truck.
"How long are you going to keep doing this, James?" Sorge picked at his fingernails. Trip laid his front paws on the wide parapet next to my hands. Thirteen floors below, a garden filled with trees and neatly-trimmed hedges stretched three-hundred yards to the ugly grey blocks filling Lower Gorev. Just outside the artificial shadow cast by Upper Gorev, sunlight bathed the gardens. A flight of birds took off and flew away in to the mid-morning sky.
"You were a good soldier, James." Sorge swung his legs down and sat upright. "But I made you better, I gave you the commission, I kept you out of prison, I bought you the room, I let Triptolemus live. I'm getting tired of covering your lapses. Professional standards may fade away in the confusion of the field but here, on-base, they are the words of the God-Emperor himself. Cadia does not mean you never have to apologise for anything. You disrespected the flag, you disrespect all servicemen and women, living and dead." Sorge came around the terrace to me. Dark eyes scrutinised me up and down. "This bloated chip riding high on your shoulder besmirches the good name of the Imperial Guard." Sorge laid a hand on my shoulder. "You are my most powerful weapon, James. Do not let them see you crack. It's bad for the Guard, bad for the Navy. Bad for Trip."
Mouth hanging open, Trip let out a pant. His tongue shot over his teeth. "You are a good boy. Better than your former master, God-Emperor rest his soul." Sorge stroked Trip's head. "You're like a son to me, James. I know, it's been a rough road for both of us. Sending you to Espiotis was on impulse. Because of man's failings, the beast arose within. And what's within me dwells within you too. Peel away these precious layers of skin and morals and all our guilt-ridden, blood-soaked desires burst free in a selfish explosion of fear, revealing our true selves; the weak, the clumsy, the callous."
Sorge laid a plastic sleeve attached to a lanyard on the wall. "I would never once dare to accuse you, a survivor, or Trip of physical weakness. Your moral code, and the heart compelling it, stands you leagues above the hapless shuffling aimlessly from birth to death." The sleeve shifted over to me. "Return to Maretuka and fade dumbly away in to an office if you wish. That's your choice." Sorge's finger left the sleeve. "Join my team, find this splendid uniqueness you so crave."
I kneeled and dug my fingers in to Trip's fur. Trip twisted his neck and licked my ear. I plucked the dangling lanyard from the wall and flicked the sleeve in to my grasp. Larn, A.J. – Visitor.
"Thank you." Sorge opened his right hand and offered it. I stuffed the pass inside a zip pocket, my eyes never once settling on the hand. "We'll be heading out from Granbo at fourteen-thirty. Briefing's at fourteen-hundred."
I clicked my tongue. Trip, trotting at my heel, came away with me from the terrace and back down to the fourth floor. Once inside the room, Trip made for his water bowl and lapped. I sat on the edge of the bed and drew the Moses from where I had stuffed it inside my waistband at the small of my back. Light caught the steel body, scratched and devoid of finish. I turned the muzzle towards my face and flicked the safety.
A lonely flower, bright blue, sat inside the glass on the mantlepiece. The Moses wavered and thumped on the bedcovers. I went over to the mirror and lifted the flower from the glass. Grow it. A warm body squidged itself against my boot. Trip curled up and laid his chin on the carpet. "Hunh." I smiled down at Trip. "Now you, my friend, are going nowhere, this afternoon." I squatted and ruffled Trip's belly. Trip rolled on his back, his front paws bent, and his tongue lolling. "You be good. Try take you out for a good scoff tonight, yeah? Proper date." I brought the flower to my nose and inhaled. "Mmm, lovely." I tipped the flower back inside the glass. "Not like you. Not like you!" I took hold of Trip's front paws and waggled them. "How 'bout a bath?"
Elek District
Are those firecrackers? Setsiba cast a glance at the street behind her. Humans around her faltered and swung in the direction of the echo following on from each pop. Setsiba drew her cloak tighter around her hunched shoulders. A canine let out a bark. Feet stumbled over the scuffed road. Parents scooped children in to their arms.
Rapid-fire barking followed Setsiba inside a food outlet on a street corner beneath an elevated roadway. The huddled denizens within lifted their eyes. Shot glasses thudded on tables. Chairs creaked. Murmurs died.
Setsiba sat down on a vacant stool in front of a counter. A leathery-faced human, grey hair sprouting from his ears, faced Setsiba. Buttons on his shirt bulged. He spread his thick forearms and looked up at a sign on the wall; Xenos forbidden. Veiny eyes, tinged with yellow, fixed on Setsiba.
A tap brought Setsiba's head around. A wooden bat knocked on the front window. On the end of a taught chain, a canine stood with its bony front paws against the glass. A human in a red jacket held the chain in one hand and the bat in the other. Blood-coloured tears ran from two black eyeholes on the pale mask covering the human's face. Playing cards, bound by cord, hung from his neck. Other masked humans drifted past the window.
The shop owner hooked a pair of eyeglasses around his ears and reached beneath the counter. A longarm of blued steel and oiled wood sat itself before Setsiba. Next to it, the human set a box holding fat, blue cartridges. He inverted the longarm and, in to the open breech, loaded cartridges. Setsiba lurched from the stool and flung herself in to a food-processing area behind the counter and over to a fire door opening on to a waste collection point. The door banged shut behind Setsiba.
From a hidden pocket in her robe, Setsiba drew a pocket slugthrower and eased the slide back. A small, brass cartridge slid halfway from the chamber. Setsiba returned the slugthrower to battery and slipped it in her pocket.
Heads poked out of hab windows on both sides of the alley Setsiba ran down. Above the rooftops, an unmanned aerial unit watched her progress. A sharp, snarling muzzle squeezed at a barred gate, shaking it on its hinges. Setsiba hit at the opposite wall and slid along it. Deep, booming barks rolled after her. A whistle shrieked. Roaring grew in the distance.
Setsiba flew out of the alley. Humans poured in to the street ahead, forming a howling wave marching towards her. Signs, borne aloft, read humans first. "HUMANS FIRST!" The crowd chanted. Slugthrowers thrust at the sky. "HUMANS FIRST!" Air cracked around Setsiba. Humans at the head of the tide fired wildly from the hip. Setsiba ducked and whirled away, her cloak expanding behind her. "HUMANS FIRST!"
Liquid blood stuck to Setsiba's slapping soles. Human bodies lay in the road. Bright spray-paint covered walls and shopfronts. Bricks smashed windows. Humans tottered around, arms bursting with food bags. A hand seized the flapping hem of Setsiba's cloak. Setsiba broke the clasp and shook free. A telescreen dropped from a window and glass exploded across the street. Gunfire echoed around a market plaza dominated by a statue towering on a plinth. Beneath a human place of worship lay overturned stalls. Fruit spilled from shattered baskets and crates. Burning furniture, piled high, crackled. Grey smoke curled skywards.
Looters scattered out of an oncoming vehicle's path. Fruit bounced off the windshield and wood clattered on the bodywork. Setsiba dug her hand in her pocket and gripped the slugthrower. Tyres locked and the passenger door swung open. Setsiba danced back from the kicking tail.
"Madam Ambassador!" A thick arm thrust at the half-open door. A bald human leaned over in his seat.
"Ikram." Setsiba let go of the slugthrower and jumped in. Scrabbling hands pattered at the doors and windows.
"Hang on." Ikram fed the vehicle in to gear and launched it around the square. Bodies tumbled away in the mirrors. His fist pummelled the horn. "It's Estoc, ma'am."
"So, now we speak in truths, yes?" Sliding around in her seat, Setsiba hung on to an overhead hold. "Quite the speaker, your commander."
"That he is!" Estoc jerked the steering wheel over. Human gangs dispersed from the vehicle's path.
"And quite the eye for the exotic."
"Was it dinner?"
"Nourishment and alcohol-fuelled intercourse, in his mind." A stone cracked against the windscreen. Thumps came from inside the rear compartment. "Is someone…?" Setsiba twisted.
"If it puts your heart at ease, I did say please." Estoc wiped a finger-mark-covered screen embedded in the partition between him and Setsiba. "Can you wipe that? I can't see where I'm going."
"…Cannot think of the germs spread on that." Setsiba rubbed her sleeve across the vehicle's navigation unit. Both rocked in their seats. Sparks flew from the vehicle's underbelly. "Gods, slow down!"
Estoc kept the vehicle careering along the side streets then charged out on to a two-lane road running beneath the Ariko Circuit. "One dead officer—one!" Estoc shook a finger. "And Orsolya drowns in vermin."
"I am not responsible for the actions of one renegade! If she sleeps around, it is on her head – and it was four! A family of three slain alongside."
"Save the hellfire for the commander, ambassador. His operation, his to deny."
"Deny?"
"A human and a xenos sharing cuddles and official secrets? I can hear the administration teetering on its stilts, right now. Have you any idea the political ramifications of this?"
"Political?! Look outside your window, see human politics in all their glory!"
"This will bring down the administration and tear the ceasefire to shreds – mark my words!"
"Ceasefire?"
"Yes, ceasefire. We've enough traitors and xenos spreading their disease across the Imperium. We cannot fight you all."
"Zalilea claims no responsibility for her actions." A blot grew in the passenger's mirror. Eye-lense blazing, an aerial unit zipped alongside the vehicle. "Eyes on us."
"Drone! Turn your head away." Estoc tore a scarf from his neck and flung it at Setsiba. "Round your head."
"Yours?" Setsiba wrapped the scarf around her head.
"Not mine." Estoc swung the vehicle north. The drone made a sharp right turn and powered after. "Tell me if it's following."
"It isn't."
"If you're lying…"
"I was lying."
"Lies and sarcasm." Estoc honked a gaggle of barefooted children milling in the road. "Come a long way from Zalilea, haven't you?"
"Believe me, my heart has never yearned so much for its shores." Setsiba scowled at cigarette ends and crumpled cans in the footwell. "And safety."
"Neither such place left in this millennium." An overhead sign saying Avramides flew past. "I'm sorry. Not what you want to hear, I know."
"No, I need fact and hard truths. I'm not sure how truthful your commander's words were."
"What did he say?"
"A promise of a well-trained, motivated security force standing our walls was made."
"Ma'am?" Estoc flipped a sun-shield out of his eyes. Black smoke rose from Avramides.
"Keep going."
"Ma'am, my toes are tickling."
"I have to see!"
Estoc mounted a slipway leading up to the Ariko Circuit. Wrecked vehicles, four, eight, and eighteen wheelers, crowded the four lanes. Humans held containers beneath leaking holes in a fuel transporter. Others sawed at seat upholstery with knives. Grinders sliced metal from bodywork. A drone hovered above the circuit.
"Iam marg." Setsiba pulled at the door handle.
"Wait!" Estoc threw his open jacket back and lifted a short-barrelled slugthrower hanging from an elasticated cord wrapped around his shoulder. "Are you armed?" He popped his own door open.
Setsiba brought out her pocket pistol. "I'm hiding behind you."
"Wait for my signal." Estoc got out, brought the slugthrower's stock in to his shoulder and swept the muzzle around the wrecks. Setsiba laid her steel on her thigh and nudged her door open. Estoc took his offhand away from his weapon and beckoned to Setsiba. "Here." Estoc released a latch holding an optic to his weapon and handed it to Setsiba. "Stay away from the parapet. Don't be long." Estoc flipped back-up ironsights up and covered the road.
Setsiba brought the optic to her eye. "Oh, Gods…" Thin, staggered crosshairs trembled over bright flames burning in the embassy building. Dust seeped through gaping holes in the Wraithbone wall. Bodies lay in the street. "Uhh." A Zalilean hung from a lamppost by the neck. Setsiba slumped against the ferrocrete and pressed the back of her hand to her dry lips.
"Ma'am? Time." Estoc jogged over and took the optic back. "Madam Ambassador, we're in the open here." Setsiba fell in to the passenger seat. Her head listed. "I told you, you wouldn't like what you saw." Estoc, weapon between his knees, started up and reversed the vehicle. "Don't worry. Sorge will answer for this, I promise."
Vermino Hospital, Elek District
A square skylight loomed over the packed seats in the hospital's waiting area. PDF guards, automatics slung over their shoulders, stood in the corridors. Gurneys and hover-sleds wheeled in to and out of Processing, some pushed, others under their own power.
Red lead coiled around my wrist, I leaned on one side of a square pillar, a cigarette clamped between my lips. Trip sat at my feet. Joe – greasy hair plastered to his scalp – leaned on the other side, a cigarette nestling between his fingers and a bouquet held in the crook of his arm. "Still with the missus?"
"I'm in the shelter. We're done."
"Need a room? I've got a room."
"Nah, I don't want to be eating out of your hand."
"If you need money, just say."
"It's not me in need of money." Ash landed on the floor. "He'll tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"Er…" Joe pointed at a nurse in a blue gown holding a dataslate.
"Number forty-four?"
"Yeah, that's…" I held up a numbered card.
"And you are visiting…?"
"Garst. Aimo Garst."
"Garst…" The nurse tapped on the slate. "Yes, Seravia Ward. If you'd follow me."
"Joe?"
"Yeah." Joe exchanged the flowers for Trip's lead. "Say hello, for me."
"Roge. Trip, sit—sit!" Trip whined.
"S'alright. Uncle Joe'll take care of you."
"It's no smoking on the wards," the nurse said.
"Uh?"
"Could you put your cigarette out before entering the wards, please?"
"Mm, sorry." I jammed my butt in an ashtray built in to a waste bin and wiped ash from my fatigues.
Empty chairs flanked the door to Room 44. Beneath a flickering light, the nurse swiped the lock and stepped back. "Could you sanitise before entering?"
"Any booze on hand?"
"Plenty." The nurse squirted a clear, viscous liquid on her hands and rubbed them together. "And all for patients deserving."
"Heh." I squirted some of the liquid on my own hands and entered the room. A child lay in the room's single bed. Tubes and needles filled its nostrils and arms. Withered flowers dropped in a pot on a shelf. A single card lay on the floor beneath the bed. Who the…? I flew out in to the corridor. "No, no, Aimo Garst—G-A-R-S-T. He's—he's twenty-three, twenty-four."
"Er, sorry, my shift is up. I've got—"
"'Ave you seen who's in there?" I threw a thumb over my shoulder. "It's a child."
"Forty-four… it's him, it's Aimo Garst, sir. He's recovering from a Troxolycin overdose. It's a recreational drug…"
I spun away and crept over the room's threshold. God-Emperor. Stick-thin arms lay on the sheets. Long, yellow nails extended over Aimo's stained fingertips. Grey hair sprouted from the taught skin on his skull in patchy tufts. Sores ringed Aimo's dry lips. His eyes had sunken in to their sockets. God-Emperor. I sunk in to a chair beside Aimo's bed. Bouquet resting on my knees, I made the Aquila and bowed my head.
Dead flowers fell inside a foot bin. I slid the pot nearer to Aimo's bed and popped the fresh flowers inside. Red, blue, purple, yellow, and green sprang over Aimo. One card? I retrieved the card from the floor and opened it. Dear Aimo, read the card. Beneath the neat letters were printed lines in chunky, black font: May the God-Emperor guide you on your path to recovery. Crammed beneath were oversized, uneven words; love Rica and Mummy.
Rica. I stood the card up on Aimo's bedside table. Pink flowers blossomed underneath the Caduceus on the front. I wasn't there for him when he needed me. I bent over my knees and pressed my crooked arms to my head and pulled my fingernails through my hair. God-Emperor, forgive me. He's my best friend. I love him.
Hands on the wall-mounted chrono struck the hour. I let go of Aimo's hand and laid it on his chest. Outside, I screwed up a sodden tissue and dropped it in a bin.
"An associate of Mister Garst?" A civilian in a waterproof cape tapped a tall cane on the floor. Silver coated the head. Implants dotted the tanned skin on his cheeks.
"You have no idea." I beat my PDF cap on my thigh and jammed it on my head. "Two and a half years gone and he's had it worse than any deployment."
"Awake?"
"No, why?"
"Ah…" The civilian rose and twiddled his cane. "The hounds howl at your friend's door."
"Yeah—" I moved past the civilian.
"A coma does not render his debt null and void." The cane smacked the floor. "Substance and the services of flesh weigh on your friend's tab. If he fails to come square, his eyes will be the least of his worries."
"What did you say?" I cocked my head and thrust it close to the pimp's. "D'you know where he's been? What he's seen? He's been in to the Eye of Terror and back, giving his blood and sweat for the gangers and the black-marketeers at home. He gave his best at Nemesis and Cadia, the best any of us could give, and what for? So the pimps could rinse him dry and cripple him with VD? His own wife threw him out on the street. Haven, the Imperium, they did nothing for him! He gave his life for the Imperium. So, what's it done for him in return?"
My boot lashed out at a chair. It banged down the corridor and came to rest legs-up. I flew in the pimp's face. "WHAT'S IT FUCKING DONE FOR HIM!" I wrenched the cane from the pimp's hands and swung it behind my head. The pimp flinched and shied away. I whirled the cane over his head and let go. It spun down the corridor and clanged on the upturned chair. The pimp scurried after it and fled.
Steam from a boiling pot rolled over the worktop and flowed in to the packed cantina's stalls. Chefs bustled around one another on their workstations. Hands thrust orders through to the patrons.
Trip lay on my feet underneath a small table squeezed in to a high-walled stall. His teeth crunched upon a flavoured chew. Two bowls sat between Joe and I, one empty, the other full. "You never told me about Espi." Joe twiddled a short stick around his fingers. "How was it?"
A muscle twitched in my cheek. "…Hard." I clamped my hand over my mouth. "It was hard."
"Well, you did what you had to do, James."
My clenched hand shook. "I've gotta come clean, Joe."
"What are you talking about? Eat your food up. You haven't touched it."
"I sat with this in my cell for two years, what I did at Cadia."
"Hey, whatever it was, it's gone. Gone for good." Joe reached between the bowls and grasped my hand. "I don't even recognise you behind that furry slug now."
"Hunh." I took my hand away and picked at my moustache. "Worst thing is picking at it."
"Have you stopped shaving?"
"Ehh, figured I could get away with a bit o' growth. I'm guilty of worse." I scratched at the hairs sprouting along my jawline.
"Yeah, we all are."
"Money men got Aimo strung up."
"Aah, shit…" Joe's head came back against the stall. "Didn't want to bring you in to that."
"I met a pimp outside his room waiting for him to wake up, little fucker."
"God, you didn't kick off, did you?"
"Flipped a chair. Frightened him a bit." I nudged my cold noodles away. "After all Aimo's done, this is what he gets. What's wrong with civilians, Joe? Why don't they understand us?"
"It's all different coming home." Joe looked across the cantina's tables. "You act different, see things different. I think it's mutual, y'know."
"We're the xenos now."
"Hah. Well…" Joe tapped a stick on his chin.
"Do me a favour?"
"Mm."
"If I give you the money for Aimo, promise me you'll take the rest. Get back on your feet."
"The rest…? You're not emptying your account for us…"
"Yeah, why not? You're in the shelter and Aimo's on his back stuffed with tubes and needles. His family kicked him out, for God's sake!"
"I know, I know, I know." Joe's hand flew to his forehead. "It's not your responsi—"
"Yes, it was! I was the officer. I was supposed to take care of you all. Just let me do this, Joe. Let me do this for you and him."
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay. Let me get the bill."
"No, you fucking won't." I slapped Rako on the table. Trip's head swung up; his mouth full of chew. "Show me how to make a transfer and I'll lend you Trip for the afternoon. How'd you like that, boy?" Trip blinked. My feet remained wedged beneath his warm belly.
Forty minutes later, I got out of a taxi and headed down a road bordered by tall, green fences in the Treskot district. A grounded warship hundreds of yards away dominated the skyline. Trees populated an island in front of a gatehouse. Granbo Naval Base - Imperial Navy, a tall sign read. Armed Naval infantry stood behind ferrocrete barricades on either side of the road.
"Afternoon." I held out my 601 and the guest pass to the Duty NCO manning the gatehouse.
"Wait here." The NCO took both inside.
"Step back one." A guard wearing a service pistol said. "Back one pace, Sergeant." The guard's hand went down to the pistol's butt. I spread my hands and backed off.
"No, you're not on the list of today's visitors." The NCO came out of the gatehouse, the 601 and pass in hand. "I need you to leave."
"Check again. Would you check again?"
"I need you to leave."
I tapped the three stripes on the tab on my breast. "Check again. Please, check again." The NCO went back inside. I whisked my cuff back from my chrono. The blue digits crept towards 14:00. I lit up and walked a slow circuit in the road. A crackle turned my head towards the city. Three-three-eight. Not heard that in a while.
14:00 crept past. Rifle-fire and lighter claps peppered Treskot. Wind carried a high-pitched buzz nearer to Granbo. Is that a chainsaw? Lasguns raised behind barricades. Optics scanned the skies. I cupped a hand to my forehead and narrowed my eyes. A smooth, sleek object hovered in the sky about a hundred yards from the base's gate. The thing held for a minute then flew away in to Treskot.
"Okay, you're cleared to enter." The NCO leaned out of the gatehouse. "Sergeant, you're cleared to enter."
"Just like that?"
"Admin error—here." The 601 and guest pass slapped my hand. "There'll be transport to take you in."
Admin error. I hung the pass around my neck and slipped my 601 in to a breast pocket. A grunt's worst enemy.
Tall, chainlink fences throttled a single lane leading up to a two-storey building beside a motor pool packed with softskin lorries and flattop transporters. A gate slid back on wheels, allowing the Wolf in to a compound overlooked by coiled razorwire.
"AIC," said the driver. "This one's yours."
"Ta." I opened the door and climbed out. Wheels spun and the Wolf lurched backwards and rocketed through the gate flinging dry muck all over me. Yeah, cheers for that. I coughed in to my cap and flapped my jacket. Mud followed me inside an empty hall with a water dispenser and vacant benches. Seventeen minutes late, damn it.
At twenty past two, I barged in to a dim hall holding thirty seated and took the end seat on the back row. Very few wore uniforms. Nobody turned their head to the latecomer. All eyes held on the green-tinged projection a plainclothes man aimed a laser pointer at. "Upon egress, you will turn north and skirt Orsolya." The laser pointer followed a curving route around the northern outskirts of the city. "OSEC will be controlling traffic and we have aerial artillery on-call should the need arise. Are you joining us this afternoon, Richard?"
"Think I could stomach Lutufeyo for a few hours." Commander Sorge, also in plainclothes, sat in the middle of the crowd next to a thick-necked, bald man. "I'll take the Carry Car. Won't let 'em out of my sight, Geli." Sorge raised a hand and crossed his fingers. "Youth Brigade's honour."
Chuckles and snorts rippled through the hall. "Okay, Richard. Are you green with sending Team One in the point vehicle?"
"Oh, I'm just another trigger-finger on this one."
"Good, good. So, Team One is in the vanguard, Carry Car follows, then Teams Two, Three, and the Arbites we can divide across the trail vehicles. Keep alert, keep to the ROE. That's all."
Seats grated. Lights came on overhead and the screen faded. I stayed seated and clutching my cap while Sorge's security detail filed around me. Plate carriers hung from broad shoulders and short-barrelled carbines dangled from slings. Youness, Thamer, and Phang, in similar casual dress, got up from their chairs.
"James!" Sorge's bald companion kneed a chair out of his way and dumped a plate carrier on the row in front of me. "Thought you were in prison."
"Nah, I'm on probation. I'm such a nice boy at heart, they couldn't bear to keep me any longer."
"Hurgh-hurgh. Good behaviour." The bald man waved Sorge over. "Our rising star showed up after all, Richard."
"Ah, the man of the hour." Sorge, in a plain, button shirt and cargo trousers, wandered away from the pair of Arbites who had remained behind. "Traffic hit you?"
"Admin error." My eyes flicked away from Sorge's belly and over to Youness, Thamer, and Phang in their little group. "Pulled us all, yeah?"
"Yeah, even you."
"All dressed up for evening prayers." A chair creaked underneath the bald man's bulk. Trunk arms crossed on the frame.
"So, I'm hidin' behind you when the shooting starts then."
"You were standing on my shoulders, last time we worked together. Remember the spire?"
Sorge clapped his hands. "Okay, James, Team Two with your mates. Let's gear you up. Estoc, put the Tin Men on their leashes—Geli!"
"Richard?"
Sorge held up five fingers. "Give us five."
Estoc? I tilted my head down. Metal struts protruded from Estoc's soft, suede shoes and ran up inside his trouserlegs. Well, I never. "You done alright for yourself then." I shoved my hand at Estoc.
"Yeah, you too." Estoc, a smile on his face, shook back.
"Should be a small-sizing around somewhere." Sorge dropped a recaf cup in to a bin and followed the rest of the security team out of the hall.
"Wasn't right what happened to you on Grendel." Estoc slung his plate-carrier over his shoulder and shifted his carbine to sit against his hip. His hand gripped mine and pulled me up.
"Nah, s'all under the bridge now." I clapped Estoc's shoulder.
"Good to know. Shall we?" Estoc set a chair upright.
"What the fuck's the job anyway?" I pushed my palm in to the door.
"Ha-ha! You're gonna love it." Estoc squeezed out after me. "This way."
You are now entering the Gorev district, the heart of New Orsolya. The sign flew over the lead Wolfhound's roof. "If she's having a heart attack." Master Chief Petty Officer Gevers itched a red scar circling his bearded neck.
Across from Gevers, Estoc sat in the driver's seat, one hand resting on the steering wheel. "Gonna need another Orsolya after the mob's finished with her."
"Straight to the abortion clinic." Chief Petty Officer Heiding, tattoos rising up his square neck, smirked in the seat behind Gevers. Gold glinted inside his mouth.
"Heid." Petty Officer Coortland, tufty hair clinging to his head in patches, popped a green pill from a foil packet. "Remember the ROE, boy. Just 'cause Sorge isn't watching, doesn't mean the Emperor isn't."
"No, no…" Heiding popped the pill in to his mouth and bit. "Everyone's a shooter out there."
"Affirmative." Gevers hitched up the sling clipped to his Volg carbine and brought the weapon between his legs. "They'll hit us on the Faltyn when we're boxed in. Two lanes is shit."
"It's all two lanes from here-on, Chief." Estoc drifted in to the turn-off and brought the convoy down the winding slipway.
"Suburbs on the north circuit. That's gang territory, and not the fucked-up skagbrains squatting in Lutu neither." Rako passed between Heiding, Coortland, and Gevers.
"Lot of beer-chits passing around behind me." The wolfhound bumped on to level ground. "Think we're missing the obvious here. Lutu was where it started."
"One of us is right, Sarn't Major."
"Hmph—hmph." Estoc rocketed over a crossroads and swung east. "You could both be wrong."
OSEC vehicles formed roadblocks at junctions and uniformed officers waved the five Wolfhounds down clear lanes.
"All vehicles, maintain speed. We have a clear run to the bridge," Sorge spoke in Estoc's earpiece.
Not with these fires. Estoc's foot held the accelerator steady. He leaned further forwards in his seat. Automatic fire rattled to the north. Gevers took hold of the handle on his window and brought his carbine up on to his knee.
"I'm not liking that speed, Estoc."
"Smoke in the road ahead."
"Maintain speed. Push through."
The needle crept up. Estoc fired off the horn. "Crawler One, we're blind three-sixty here. I'm slowing down."
"Maintain speed."
A figure darted through the smoke ahead. Estoc's eyes followed the fleeting shadow. His fist rammed the horn. Fire blazed on the roof of a warehouse the convoy thundered past. An overturned flatbed blocked a southerly street. Scavengers with rags tied around their faces picked at the burst containers. OSEC wearing respirators scattered from the honking horn. Black smoke from a torched fuelling station engulfed the Wolfhounds. Gevers brought a scarf over his nose and filtered the car's air vents. Estoc took a hand from the wheel and tugged his mask up.
Blood splattered the flat windscreen. A body thumped against the Wolfhound's nose and fell beneath the vehicle. Estoc and Gevers lurched forwards. "Got her!" Gevers, one boot on the dash, lunged at the wheel and held it steady. "I've got her."
Estoc batted Gevers' hand away. "Crawler One, we just—"
"Yeah, we saw," Sorge said. "People get in the way, that's their problem."
"Shouldn't fucking steal fuel then." Coortland peeled paper from gum sticks and passed one over to Heiding.
"Haha." Heiding popped the gum in his mouth. Paper fluttered down to the floor. "I know who's lost a bet."
"Doesn't count." Coortland grinned. "Not a chance, that counts."
"Are you still in business, up front?"
Estoc eased the pressure from the accelerator and turned the wipers on. Thin blades cut through blood flecks and skin fragments and smeared mucky red over the glass. Amongst the mess, a tooth remained embedded. "Affirm."
Hab blocks choked Upper Gorev's south-westerly pillar. Grey clouds swallowed the district's protruding lip. Estoc steered the Wolfhound through the ring of OSEC vehicles and bounced over a hump leading up to a long ramp, five-hundred yards long, preceding the Faltyn Bridge. The convoy roared out from Upper Gorev's shadow and rode up to the first set of pillars.
"Crawler Actual, this is Bull-bird. We have you on thermal." Estoc peered out of his side window at the sky to the south. "All lanes on Faltyn are clear. We'll be your stewards on this flight."
Sorge responded. "Never mind us, Air, we need eyes on the eastern ramp. Anybody loitering nearby, any personnel in large groups. If there is anybody looking out of a window, you tell us."
"Roger."
"What's got the commander so worked up?" Heiding flicked a chewed-up ball of gum out of his window.
"I'll stop this convoy and make you pick that gum up, Heiding."
"Ahaha!" Heiding threw back his head. "Just my own brand of chaos, Commander."
"You know there are Administratum reps riding with us, don't you? They'd have you peeling crap off the road for weeks."
"Shall we let them worry about keeping their wives and mistresses apart instead, sir?"
"Wives and mistresses?" Gevers twisted. Heiding flicked the arms on a pair of darkened glasses open and slid them up his wide nose.
"Hey, OSEC." The Wolfhound's onboard 319 set chirped. "We know you are listening, now let the Spartacists' voices be heard. Your regime is corrupt, fuelled by the decadence of the imperialist money-lenders and xenos-lovers. Your so-called Lord Commander's ears twitch at the wagging of the xenos witches forked tongues—"
Estoc twisted the 319's dial. "Let's see frightened kids from Sparta College do better." A sign flashed past the Wolfhound. "Halfway point, coming up."
"Air, how does the eastern bank look?"
"Crawler Actual, you are green. OSEC has the eastern bank cleared and roadblocks are in place."
"And the buildings?"
"You are clear from the ground up. Be aware, fires in the upper storeys are flaring out our imaging."
"Roger. Stay on the eastern bank, for now."
"Wilco."
Gevers moved his window down a crack and lengthened his Volg's stock. "Eyes on OSEC."
"Yeah. Just say the word."
Estoc glanced up at the driver's mirror. Coortland's arm slid a fat, green tube with rubber covers fitted to the muzzle and tail across the rear shelf. Faltyn's two eastern pillars briefly blotted out the weak sunlight. "Ramp coming up." The Wolfhound's nose dipped and the convoy rode the ramp's length and cruised past the OSEC screen and headed north.
Ferrocrete skeletons – half-constructed hab-blocks – lined the riverbank. Swinging legs hung over edges. Washing lines connected buildings. Wooden planks and metal sheets linked the yawning gaps. On ground level, furniture piles smouldered. Stray dogs rootled through split binbags, left piled in the dozen at the roadside. The emaciated beasts scurried in to alleys at a blast of the Wolfhound's horn. Graffiti sprayed across a wall read, Throw Jagoda from the Throne.
"Holding fac coming up." Estoc swerved around an island in an S-pattern and turned back east. OSEC units were positioned at the north and south end of a street running beneath a thirty-foot-high wall. Circular towers manned by sentries loomed at the ends and razorwire ran between them. Two six-wheeled armoured vehicles painted in dull, OSEC grey squatted by an open gateway leading inside a compound; their autocannons covering the street.
Estoc flew through the gate. Gevers, Heiding, and Coortland braced their feet and held on before the sharp stop threw them forwards. The trail vehicles cleared the opening and a blast-door lowered behind them. "Team One, on me." Doors popped open.
"Copy." Estoc killed the engine and dismounted with the security team. Soft covers sat low on heads and masks and scarves hid faces. Sorge, Volg carbine in hand, led the trench-coated Arbites and the robed Administratum officials down a slope and in to the holding facility. Estoc, Heiding, Coortland, and Gevers followed them down in to a long tunnel guarded at intervals by pairs of masked OSEC.
The team passed through electrified gates and airlocks, all under human and cyberhound guard. Surveillance followed their movement deeper in to the facility. Bright illumination lit up every passageway. Cold, dry air itched Estoc's eyes.
"Hold here, guys. Estoc?" Sorge unclipped his Volg from his sling and handed it to Gevers.
"Why, sir?" Estoc popped his sling's quick-detach clasp and passed off his Volg to Coortland.
"I need you to verify." A klaxon blared above the team. Orange lights flashed inside a clear casing.
Holding cells faced one another along a straight corridor. Screens showed rows of sitting prisoners chained together and locked to bars bolted to the floor. Beneath the screens, smaller control panels revealed their status in red letters; full.
One. A cell at the very end held a single prisoner, chained barefoot beneath the dazzling light and shrouded in a large, black bag.
"Log the time of retrieval." The Administratum rep said to his aide.
"Izaak, would you do the honours?"
Izaak, one of the Arbites, whisked off a glove and tapped a code in to the panel. "Afzal?"
"Only the Arbites can handle the prisoner," Sorge murmured to Estoc.
"Commander?" Izaak, kneeling behind the prisoner, wrenched at an arm and held up the right hand. "First two appendages missing on the right hand." Legs kicked out. Afzal seized the legs and planted a hobnailed boot on them.
"Yeah, that's our package. Estoc, concur?"
"I concur."
The Administratum rep squeezed in and pulled a dataslate from his bag. "Prints."
Izaak thrust the prisoner's left hand at the mucky screen. "Hold, hold, hold." Izaak smacked his open hand on the back of the prisoner's head. "Hold!"
"Recorded." The Administratum rep withdrew from the cell. "Time is fifteen twenty-four HST."
Chains jangled and fell away from the prisoner. Binders clicked around wrists and the Arbites hauled the prisoner up and marched out of the cell. Team One, waiting with the other Administratum rep at the checkpoint, returned Estoc's and Sorge's weapons and fell in with them on the way back to the surface. "Was this on the prisoner?"
"Yes, sir." The Administratum rep handed Sorge two sealed plastic bags. "All affects have been recorded. No traces of chemical weapons have been detected on the clothing."
At the holding facility's exit, a blast door rose, casting light across the waiting group. Estoc trailed Heiding, Coortland, and Gevers up the ramp to the waiting vehicles. Estoc's earpiece buzzed. "Bomb threat, bomb threat. Grey Vetruvi, turning right along—"
"On the double, gentlemen!" Sorge bounded over to the Carry Car and raised his Volg. The Arbites bowled the prisoner against the door and drew bolt pistols. James and the other teams hunched behind their vehicle's bodies and aimed their weapons up at the perimeter wall. A vehicle engine roared. Gunfire rolled through the nearby streets.
A shockwave rattled the razorwire. Heads twitched and shoulders hunched. "All good?" The bomb blast's echo faded. Sorge, one hand keeping his Volg up, slid sideways and flung open the Carry Car's passenger door. "Come on—in, in!"
High-pitched whining flew over the humming razorwire. Chainsword? Estoc's thumb rested on his Volg's selector.
"Drone!" Rifle-fire popped along the perimeter. Automatics rattled. The whining grew to a shriek. Black smoke blasted in to the sky on the other side of the wall. Dirt flew over the parapet and doused the Wolfhounds. Eyes tight shut; Estoc coughed in to his sleeve.
"Everybody good?" Sorge hoisted himself inside the Carry Car's front seat and unhooked the 319's receiver. "Air, are we good?"
"Crawler Actual, that was a suicide-vehicle going off two streets away."
"What about the drone? Was that for us?"
"Err, unknown at this time."
"Air, we'd be obliged if you'd let us know about the fireworks before they come down on our heads!" Sorge hurled the receiver against the 319's body. "Mount up!"
The Arbites bundled the prisoner aboard the Carry Car and the rest of the team swung inside their vehicles and slammed their doors. Dust poured through gaps in the turret hatch and hung inside the point vehicle's cab. Estoc twisted the Wolfhound's ignition and barrelled in a semi-circle towards the rising blast door. Outside the holding facility, a grey haze darkened the street. Smoke rose from one of the armoured cars, lying with its shredded underbelly exposed in the centre of a crater. Fire licked at an open hatch in the vehicle's flank. A limp arm dangled from it.
Lutufeyo
Filthy hands rattled cage bars inside the OSEC van. Gauntlets slammed the outer door and thumped on it. Smoke coughed from the exhaust and the van rattled off. Ovi van der Beek dragged a scarf over his face and wafted at the stinking Lutu air.
"Smell that?" Ovi's partner Emer Faisy hitched his own mask up. "It's the run-off from Upper Gorev."
"Yeah, I forgot you worked up in the Pipes."
"All that black water has got to go somewhere."
"So, Lutu lucks out—"
"Bomb, bomb!" Their vox's and Emer ducked and scooted over to their parked patrol car. Four rioters lay on their stomachs, their hands bound behind their backs. Another officer, Deo Auterson, crouched over the prisoners with his service weapon drawn. All three flinched and hugged the ground. Glass rattled in the shop across the street. A pot toppled from a balcony and shattered.
"God-Emperor!"
"Where the fuck did they get PT from?" Ovi scrambled in to Deo's vehicle and plucked the car's onboard vox from its cradle. "Control, TR046. Bomb strike in Lutufeyo district west, please advise."
"Eurgh…" Emer held a squirming rioter down. "PT?"
"Must have bought it from Ninth Division." Deo twisted and reached for an Accatran lying on the bonnet. "Selling it by the—" Deo's head struck the bonnet.
"Deo?" Glass cracked above Ovi. Jagged tattoos stitched across the windscreen. Sparks flew from the vox. "Agh!" Ovi dropped the receiver and wormed backwards. Bullets whizzed around the car. The bound rioters bucked.
"Ovi!" Emer's body hugged the rioters. His laspistol struck a nape. "Stay down!"
Heads bobbed on rooftops. Silhouettes massed in windows. Feet rumbled. "Shit." Ovi, his back to the open door, raised himself up and peeped through the shutter. Deo's torso, slumped over the bonnet, trapped the shotgun beneath him. "Deo?"
Air burst from a tyre. The car slouched. "Ovi, what happened to Deo? What happened to Deo?"
Cracks split the air. The door smacked Ovi's back. "UP! UP!" Ovi kicked at the rioters. "GET UP!"
"What are we doing?" Emer booted a rioter and hauled him upright.
"Across the street. See that bookshop?"
"Er, yeah. Brown doors?"
"That's the one." Ovi peeled open a pouch on his vest and pulled out a silver cylinder.
"Smoke?"
"CS." Ovi worked the pin free and hurled the grenade over the door. It hit the unmetalled road and rolled through the dirt gushing smoke. Rounds cut through the spreading cloud. "NOW!"
"Get up! I'll shoot you." Emer thrust the rioters towards the bookshop, one after the other. "I'll shoot you!"
"HELP! OSEC IS HERE!"
"Quiet!" Emer battered a rioter around the ear with his laspistol. "Make another sound and I'll shoot you. Inside!"
Ovi shut the car door and eased the Accatran out from Deo's grip. Blood ran in a thin trickle from Deo's right eye. "Sorry, Deo." Ovi hunched over and ran around to the open doors. "Got PPE?"
"Now you're worrying?!" Emer flung the doors closed and rammed the bolts across. "C'mon, give me a hand." The officers heaved fallen bookshelves across the paper-strewn floor and leaned them on the windows. "Er, shouldn't one of us be…?"
"Hey!" Ovi whipped the Accatran's muzzle around at the four rioters. "Back up—BACK UP!"
Spittle landed on torn-up pages. Ovi dove at the offender and thrust the Accatran's butt in to his stomach. "Get the fuck—!" The rioters shuffled backwards and fell on their stomachs behind a counter.
"Oh, shit." Emer, his ear to the door, danced back. "Ovi, I can hear them outside. A tonne of them."
"Down. Get down." Ovi crouched behind the counter with the rioters. He kept hold of the Accatran in his right hand and drew his service weapon and pointed it at the rioters. "One word and I'll—"
"OSEC IN HEEERE!" A rioter jerked his head up. Ovi rammed his laspistol in to the squealer's skull.
"Anyone else…?" Emer tapped his laspistol's flat butt in his palm.
"Hey, OSEC!" An amplified voice boomed in the street. "Give up your badges, tear the imperialist shackles binding your wrists, give up your sins; repent! Your masters spend your lives like currency, sitting in the clouds in their decadent palace. The collective cry from we, the oppressed, is the rattling of the chains binding us to a twilight dynasty, waning in this virgin millennium."
"Virgin millennium?"
"Quiet." Ovi popped his laspistol on the counter and slid the Accatran's tubular fore-end back. A transparent shell marked bean bag moved out of the chamber. "Damn it."
"What?"
"It's riot-shot." Ovi returned the Accatran to battery. "Useless."
"Hey, they've stopped." Emer peeped over the counter.
Light burst through holes peppering the doors and bookshelves. Glass shards spat across the shop. Splinters showered the huddling officers. Pages spiralled in to the air and fluttered down on the rioters. A grenade thunked through a gap between a window and a bookshelf and rolled in to the centre of the room. Singing fragments screamed over Ovi's and Emer's heads.
"STOP! WE'RE HERE TOO!"
"HE'S GOT NO AMMO!"
"Shut up!" Emer brought his laspistol's butt down on the base of the nearest rioter's spine. A straight, red gash ran up Emer's cheek, in to his hairline.
"Emer, your face!"
"I'm alright. The plate took it." Emer wiped the bleeding cut on his sleeve. "Ahh…"
"Officers Ovaiz van der Beek and Emer Faisy." The amplified voice returned. "Will you follow Officer Deo Auterson in to a shallow grave and rot dumbly away in to nothing?"
"Ovi, how does he—?"
"Ssh!"
"The child your wife will bear you. Would you see him born in chains, forever damned to a life of servitude? He shall be a son of Sparta, a revolutionary from the womb."
Bean bag spattered upon the perforated doors. Ovi pumped the Accatran and fired again. A spent cartridge bounced off his knee.
"Ovi?" Wheels ground up dirt outside. Hydraulics whirred.
"Down!" Ovi dropped the Accatran and hugged the floor. An automatic cannon blasted dinnerplate-sized holes in the walls and tore the doors to splinters. Razor-sharp fragments exploded outwards. Shelving collapsed. Thumping drowned out the screams. Shredded paper whirled about.
Flat on the floor beside their prisoners, Ovi and Emer lifted their heads. Blood crept down Emer's skin. Pages stuck to Ovi's arms and legs. Black smoke seeped through the gaping holes in the plaster and wood.
"Ovi?" Sharp cracks split the air. Emer brought his head back down to the floor and covered his ears. Staccato pops ripped along the street. Ovi swept his laspistol from the counter and stretched his arm out and aimed at the smoke.
"Clear, clear!"
"Clear! Nine dead." The remains of the shop doors flew inwards and toppled over.
"Unformed officers inside!" Ovi raised his hands and pointed his laspistol at the ceiling.
Men in masks and wearing ballistic vests on top of civilian clothing barrelled inside. Stubby automatic weapons trained on Ovi. "Up! Stand up!"
Ovi's laspistol fell from his fingers. "Emer. Emer."
Emer, his head askew, stared at the ceiling. Blood dripped from his chin. One of the masked men kneeled next to Emer and laid two fingers on his neck. "Clear! One officer standing, one flatlined. Four civilians detained."
"Emer." Hands hauled Ovi out of the shop and in to stinging smoke pouring from an engine of a flatbed lorry parked next to a double-barrelled anti-aircraft cannon perched on a mount bolted to the bed. Spartacist bodies lay around it.
"She's live!" A masked gunman jumped down from the AA gun and bounded away. A flash came from the breech and bright sparks hissed and spat.
"Emer!"
"We'll bring the bodies. Don't worry, OSEC."
Boxy, military vehicles coated in dust stood in a line further down the street. More of the masked gunmen held a perimeter around them. "All secure?" A bald man leaned out of the cab of the vehicle at the head of the column.
"We're clear."
"Right, put him in Team Two's vehicle. Crawler Actual, Crawler One. Threat neutralised." The bald man twirled his upper arm. Hands tapped shoulders and the perimeter security fell back to their vehicles. A young man in a tan plate carrier and a navy-blue cap shifted over to the opposite seat in the rear of the vehicle. Pale, blue eyes fixed on Ovi.
"Take his legs." Emer's feet poked through the door. Ovi grasped Emer's legs and guided him inside and laid him on the flat section beneath the closed turret hatch. Doors slammed. Engines rumbled. Ovi picked up Emer's hand and squeezed it. Blood oozed from between his fingers.
Granbo Naval Base, 17:06
Sleet lanced from iron clouds gathering over Granbo. Behind me, the front gate rattled shut. My uniform bulged in a pack slung over my shoulder. Sweat darkened the back and pits of a grey t-shirt marked Navy in thick letters. Mud clung to dark blue cotton trousers tucked in to my PDF boots.
Dimmed headlights rolled from Granbo's gate and drew alongside me. "Carriage, milord?" A window buzzed down. Estoc sat in the driver's seat.
"Nah, I'm enjoying this hot sun." I shifted my bag to my other shoulder. "See if that OSEC prick wants a carriage."
"We'll debrief him in the morning. Keeping him cosy, for now." Estoc popped the car's locks. "C'mon. The streets are mean tonight."
"And I'm not?"
"Ha-ha! You're alright, James."
I dropped my bag on the backseat and pulled the door shut. "I 'ave good days."
"Today?" Estoc released the handbrake.
"My trigger-finger's happy." I scratched at my groin. "The colonel's not."
"Haw—Colonel!" Estoc dragged a glove over his upper lip. "Ahh…"
"So, what's this ride for?"
"Uh? There's no catch. You're in the Vekaria, aren't you?"
"I dunno, it was a hotel."
"Course you are! That's the best hotel in town, James."
"Yeah, but it's outta Sorge's pocket which means I'm in it." I planted a boot on the car's dash. "Gold-plated cage."
"Somebody has to make the difficult decisions, James. And these men, you won't like them, you won't understand them. But there is always a higher purpose that they serve. Richard Sorge has been doing this for a very long time. He is not a cruel man—"
"No, I know vindictive cruelty comes easy to men what haven't given the best they could in the worst places in the galaxy. Men with numbers in their heads and pens in their hands signing off death warrants like bloody birthday cards."
"Sorge is not a field asset, he controls them. You are his asset, as am I, and we are employed to our strengths in the fields of which we are suited best."
"So, I'm a scalp-hunter, is that it?"
"Can you think of anything better to do?"
"Yeah, plant a bomb in Sorge's office, fuck the most expensive whore in town, then take Trip out for a walk tomorrow. Oh, and get some chocolate biscuits."
Estoc, a grin spreading across his face, looked between me and the road. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." I folded my arms and leaned my head back. "Big hotel. Can't miss it."
"James?" Estoc squeezed my shoulder. "James?"
My head snapped upright. "Urgh… how long was I asleep?"
"About thirty-five minutes."
"Oi, this isn't Vekaria. Where did you bring me?"
"Orders, James." Estoc took the keys from the car's ignition and got out. "You'll like it."
"Like what?"
"Come on."
Scaffolding and dirty screening rose up half-built structures lining a street, all bare of doors and windows. Estoc swiped a section of plastic sheeting hanging over a doorway aside entered a house. "Don't fuck with me, old man, I'm tired." I batted the sheeting away.
"Yeah, you slept like a log through the riots." Estoc led me down a corridor without any flooring or even a ferrocrete layer covering the bare earth.
"I've slept through artillery."
"Have you slept through a wife?" Estoc wrapped his arms around a cement-mixer parked on top of paving slabs in the centre of a room and shunted it off.
"Hurgh-hurgh. I've slept through prison. Couldn't get a wink at first. Too quiet. Scary."
"Safe?" Estoc ran his fingertips beneath a paving slab and lifted it up.
"Never. No-one's looking out for you there."
"Ahh, course. Throw me the shovel, would you?"
"You want me to throw it?" I passed a shovel leaning amongst picks and hammers to Estoc. "Is this a slow desertion then? I can get behind that."
Estoc dug soil out from a square area left by a paving slab until the blade clanged against something. "Here we go." Estoc swept earth away from an iron pull-ring. "James, could you…? The back isn't what it was."
"Come on, you old goat." I got down next to Estoc and grasped the pull-ring. "Slip a few disks, why dontcha?"
"I've done worse in my time—hurgh!" Thick hinges groaned and the hatch thudded in to an adjacent slab. Ladder rungs led down a circular shaft built of stone.
"Aww." I arched my back and rubbed at the base of my spine. "Never done a secret passage before."
"Says the Clink—heh-heh." Estoc backed on to the ladder and flicked a tiny light switch dangling from wires leading down the shaft.
"Nah, I swear nothing's ever been up there." I manoeuvred my feet down to the rungs. "Are we leaving this open then? Let some homeless twat in for the night?"
"Oh, don't worry about that. We won't be staying long."
"No keep out sign or nothing?"
"We've found that warning signs only encourage the curious. Nobody ever looks twice at a building site—oh, mind your head down here, James."
"I dunno, I don't think it's me you should worry about, mate." Rough ferrocrete met my soles. "There's power in being an 'ead shorter than the other guys."
"Absolutely. The shorter, leaner guys in the ring—crafty, wily little bastards so they were." Cables, grouped in fours, ran along the curving walls of a tunnel leading up to a bulkhead door that looked to be taken from a warship. Estoc laid his thumb on a circular pad and tapped a combination in to a small telescreen. Locks hissed and a hatch spun and rose.
Rubber matting covered a floor busy with cables. Bright, curving walls made of thin material shone in the light given off by telescreens attached to a quadruple-armed stand. Estoc swivelled a chair around and moved a keyboard over. "Seems to be awake…"
"Is that the prisoner? Why house him out 'ere, not at Granbo?"
"Too high-profile." Estoc peeled a folder's transparent cover away from a bound document and clicked a pen. "If you'd just sign here…"
"I'm done."
"You'll want this, James!" Estoc swung round. "I swear 'pon the Golden Throne, you'll want to sign this."
"What, is this for my life again?"
"No, for hers. If we turn the prisoner over to the city courts to face justice, we are blowing what is potentially our biggest acquisition."
"Blow it. I'm walking."
"Finding this woman entertains the same consequences as discovering a vaccine, James." Estoc spun his chair to face the monitors. "Screen four. Look. Look."
I wrapped my hand around the head of Estoc's chair. Lines squirmed across a fuzzy screen. Positioned in the corner, near the ceiling, the feed displayed a containment cell holding a single prisoner. A dark-haired woman, almost out of the field of vision, sat with her back to the wall.
"This document, should you sign, binds you to a clause of confidentiality." Estoc slid the document along the desk. "You will not speak of this encounter with anyone else outside this facility bar the commander. This is on pain of death. Does that make sense, James? James…?" My fingertips drew the folder over and I scribbled out a signature.
Mirrored walls surrounded the dim cell. Rippling shadows played across the lone occupant. Stairs descending from the observation suite brought me down to a narrow passage circuiting the cell. On the other side of the glass, the woman sat cross-legged and barefoot on the floor near a corner. Thick hair fell down the shoulders of a grey boiler suit.
I approached the corner nearest the woman and crouched, linking my fingers and resting my elbows on my knees. Straight-backed, the woman held her chin up. Deep gold eyes bored in to the far wall. Red skin surrounded her right eye. Sharp lines cut across her forehead. Rounded stumps ended halfway along her right thumb, her forefinger, and the smallest toes on her right foot. Arteries in her neck pulsated. Warmth spread up my back and inside my arms. A muscle twitched in my cheek. My head drooped. I pressed my warm palms against my knees and stood up and left the passage.
Steel jaws opened and rubbish cascaded in to valleys between mountains of landfill. Behind me, the orange glow on the horizon hid Orsolya. Out in the pitch darkness, I trudged in to the deepest trough, stopped there, and drew the Moses from my waistband. Holding it by the body, I twisted around. My eyebrows steepled. Lips puckered. I fell to my knees and planted the Moses before me, cocked, chambered, and safety off. I squeezed my thighs and clamped my teeth together. Filthy, sodden packets, boxes, and tins cut in to my hands clawing channels in the filth. Thunder howled around me. I reared my head back and howled with it.